Search - Gioseffo Guami, Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina, Claudio Merulo :: The Italian Cornetto

Italian Cornetto, American Virtuoso

Giordano Bruno | Wherever I am, I am. | 02/03/2008

(5 out of 5 stars)

"One summer around 1980, a consort of shawms and sackbutts was performing the music of Gussago and Gabrieli on the main stage of the Los Angeles Renaissance Faire. The musicians took note of a gangly dark-haired teenager who seemed to be at the lip of the stage for every performance. This day the teenager was clutching a plastic shawm in his hands. Now the plastic shawms marketed in the '70s and '80s were not known to be of professional quality, but the leader of the band, a certain Ugolino da Chiavari, jestingly invited the lad to jam with the guys on stage. To the wonderment of all and the jealousy of some, the kid was a whiz on his toy instrument. Re-christened Whiz, he soon became a regular member of the ensemble. Ugolino gave him a place to live during the concrt season and placed a cornetto in his hands for the first time. Not too long after, Whiz departed California for Schola Cantorum of Basel, Switzerland.



"Whiz" is now Doron Sherwin, of Concerto Palatino, the world-renowned cornetto and sackbutt ensemble founded by Bruce Dickey, and also of Le Reverdie, a marvelous mixed consort specializing in Medieval music. Sherwin and Dickey together are the most glorious cornetto duo since the Venetian Plague of 1650 thinned the ranks of virtuosi on this most difficult and athletic of instruments.



This CD shows Doron's virtuosity on his own terms, with only organ or harpsichord accompaniment, performing some of the most flamboyant, flashy music of the late Renaissance. The rapid "passagi" of demi-hemi-semiquavers, some written and some improvised, are the musical equivalent of juggling ten pins at a time; only a fiddler of the quality of Goebel or Manze could match the fire Doron lights with his little wooden horn. The tone produced by a good cornettist is nothing like the modern cornet or trumpet; it's suave, elegant, ever so slightly arrogant, like a Venetian courtier in his black velvets and laces. Master Ugolino should be proud of his "discovery". Doron Sherwin is a prodigy at any age."